The Hong Kong Liberal Studies Financial Literacy Championship continues to nurture secondary school students’ practical money skills for the fifth year in a row with the preliminary online quiz competition commencing from March 4-24, 2019. Officiating guests kicked off the opening ceremony, attended by over 100 teachers and students.

This year, the Championship has been gamified and with questions adapted to appeal to the demographics of secondary school students. A city-wide scoreboard will display the rankings of all participating schools in real-time to create excitement.

This year the Championship also debuted Handy Finance, a series of handkerchiefs that distills 20 essential personal finance concepts into simple and easy to understand infographics.1 Topics range from budgeting, saving, through to personal data and privacy protection. Students are encouraged to access to Handy Finance before they attempt the quizzes as there will be questions around the infographics.

Released at the opening ceremony of the Hong Kong Liberal Studies-Financial Literacy Championship last Saturday (February 23), Handy Finance subverts the traditional text-based learning approach by presenting financial concepts in simple infographics, which can be readily learned in one minute. Limited numbers of physical Handy Finance handkerchiefs will also be distributed for students to collect.

Victor Cheng, Executive Director of Hong Kong Education City, the organizer of the competition, said: “As one of the essential 21st century skills, financial literacy is just as important as science knowledge and IT literacy, according to the World Economic Forum. For this reason, we have organized the Hong Kong Liberal Studies-Financial Literacy Championship Online Quiz every year since 2014. The Championship aims to provide an e-learning platform for students to apply the Liberal Studies and financial knowledge learned from classroom to the competition. This year, with Handy Finance, we hope to further kindle students’ interest with eye-catching images. Building upon Hong Kong Education City’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Scheme, this image-based approach will hopefully enhance students’ learning effectiveness and equip them to become smart consumers in the era of smart city.”

Maaike Steinebach, Visa General Manager, Hong Kong and Macau, said: “Payments have become increasingly more digitized, online and on-demand. While the fundamentals of practical money skills remain the same – plan, budget, save, and spend responsibly – there are new risks that Hong Kong’s next generation of smart citizens need to be aware of, for instance, cybersecurity risks and personal data and identity theft. Visa is honored to support this city-wide financial literacy program for the fifth year, helping Hong Kong students become more financially confident.”

Students from the Immaculate Heart of Mary College who attended the opening ceremony said that they find learning money management skills visually through Handy Finance to be innovative and interesting.

Simon Lee, Senior Lecturer and Co-director of the International Business and Chinese Enterprise programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said: "Financial technology has been widely applied in daily life – from digital payments to insurance, loans and financial advisory, which brings convenience and cost efficiency. However, users should be aware of the purpose and function of using the digital services and in particular safeguard their personal data privacy and security in Big Data era ," Lee remarked.

Now in its fifth consecutive year, the Hong Kong Liberal Studies-Financial Literacy Championship 2019 is organised by iknow of the Hong Kong Economic Journal Company Limited and the Hong Kong Education City Limited, co-organised by the Education Bureau and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, partnered with St. James’ Settlement, and supported by Visa. The Championship is a quiz-based competition and is open to all secondary school students registered in Hong Kong.

The preliminary competition, which is held in Chinese, will have three, one-week stages, March 4 to 10, March 11 to 17 and March 18 to 24. During the quiz, participants will answer 15 multiple-choice questions in 15 minutes. Each student participant will be required to log in with their Hong Kong Education City Student Account to attempt the quiz, and a student can only attempt the quiz one time per preliminary stage.

In addition to attractive prizes such as iPads and book vouchers, the five schools that both had the highest cumulative average scores and were ranked amongst the top 30 in terms of participation rate during the preliminary three stages can enter the final round – a city-wide, inter-school competition - and compete for the HK$12,000 scholarship grand prize. Each of the 10 schools with the highest participation rate during the three preliminary stages will also receive a "Most Enthusiastic Participating School Award". The results of the online quiz will be announced on the competition’s official website in early May.

The Championship aims to improve students’ practical money skills and to encourage them to embrace the era of intelligence. Since its launch in 2014, the Championship has recorded participation from 267 schools and about 35,000 students.